


Surprises on the Surface

by elfgirl931



Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-19
Updated: 2014-09-24
Packaged: 2018-02-05 09:15:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1813150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elfgirl931/pseuds/elfgirl931
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of one-shots focusing on Zevran and Aza Brosca. Rated M for minor smut in later chapters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Tell Me Something Good

      "You are quiet this evening, _mi tesorina_ ,” Zevran remarked as his clever fingers kneaded at the knots in Aza’s shoulders. He paused after dipping his fingers into his little jar of fragrant oil. “Quieter than usual.”

      Aza grunted noncommittally, giving her shoulders the slightest shrug. Zevran was not yet sure whether she meant to urge him back to his massage, or whether she simply didn’t want to talk. He settled back into his task, content to wait her out.

      Sure enough, after a few minutes of staring at the canvas wall of their tent, Aza sighed. “Didn’t like going back to Orzammar,” she muttered. Zevran wisely stayed silent. “I’m a Gray Warden now, but… I didn’t like you seeing the way they all looked at me.”

      “Whatever do you mean? They looked at you like the avenging goddess that you are!”

       “Be serious,” she said, swatting at his hand. “I might be a Gray Warden, I might have won their Proving, I might have gone further into the Deep Roads than any of them ever have, and I might have put their new king on the throne, but all I ever will be to them is a Casteless. They look at me and they see a brand.”

      Zevran stilled his hands and closed the oil jar, putting it aside slowly and deliberately. He tugged gently at Aza’s shoulder until she reluctantly turned her body towards him. A tight, bitter expression contorted her face, and her eyes shone with angry tears.

       “Do you think that _I_ see you that way?” he asked, coaxing her hands into his. “Do you think that your fellow Warden, silly as he is, sees you that way? Perhaps Wynne, or even Sten?”

       “No,” she said grudgingly, wiping her eyes with her forearm.

        “Well then. I say that you give no more thought to those who wish you ill. Those who are important, chiefly myself, think that you are an absolute divine goddess.”

       Aza rolled her eyes and punched him lightly in the shoulder. “All right then, lay it on thick.”

      “It is nothing but the truth,” he protested, rubbing his shoulder. “You are the most lovely little - “

      “Shut up and kiss me,” she interrupted, but her hands were gentle as she cupped his cheeks.

       Zevran was more than happy to oblige, and he sank slowly down on the bedroll, pulling her with him. He was surprised when she broke away and pillowed her head on his chest with a sigh.

      “Something still bothers you, my dove?” he asked, stroking the hair out of her face.

       “Leske,” Aza said finally. More tears spilled from her eyes, and she dashed them away angrily. “I had to kill him. I had to. He was my best friend but he would have….”

      “You sound as though you do not believe yourself,” Zevran remarked. “I know what it is to kill someone you… care for, as you know,” he said quietly. “It is not something you will heal from quickly.”

      They both lay quietly for a time, until Zevran propped himself up on one elbow and grinned down at her. “Come, let us not dwell on sadness. Tell me something that makes you smile. Apart from me, of course.”

       Aza rolled her eyes at him, but then wrinkled her nose in consideration. She smiled when she hit on something. “My sister. Rica. You met her, for a few minutes at least.”

       “Tell me about her, then. I have regaled you with plenty of fine tales of my life, now it is time you returned the favor.”

        “All right, all right.” She started talking, slowly at first but then with more pleasure as she got into describing Rica’s face, and the way she’d kept her safe, and kept going until their lantern burned out, and late into the night until she fell asleep mid-sentence.

      When Aza opened her eyes the next morning, Zevran was grinning at her. “I believe that last night was the longest I have ever heard you speak at one time,” he remarked.

        “Don’t you ever sleep?” she grumbled, pulling the blanket over her face.

       He yanked it back down and planted a few kisses on her cheeks and nose. “Of course, and I did all the more soundly last night because your heart was lighter.

      Aza caught his face and kissed him firmly on the lips. “Don’t know what I’d do without you, Zev,” she said with uncharacteristic softness.

       His heart beat a strange rhythm in his chest as he looked down at her, but he did not want to pause and try to understand it. “You will not have to find out, I assure you.”


	2. Aza's Calling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zevran is not ready when his beloved Warden must go to her Calling. IMPLIED CHARACTER DEATH.

      Zevran always thought bunking at an inn was infinitely better than sleeping outside. Years of traveling with the Wardens had not softened his dislike for resting on cold hard ground, and the weather tonight, he reflected with a glance at the snow-flecked window, was even more reason to want to be inside.

      Tonight Aza was quiet, as she had been for the last few weeks. They'd set out abruptly at the beginning of the month, seemingly without telling anyone in the Grey Warden chain of command – and Aza had not wished to elaborate. Zevran would not pry, and followed her without comment or question, as he always had – but his curiosity was beginning to get the better of him.

      After eating a sub-par dinner in their room, the pair sat on the floor in companionable silence, staring into the fire. Zevran sipped lazily at a glass of wine, and Aza nursed a tankard of ale. "So, _mi_ _tesorina_ , are you going to tell me where we are headed this time? It is not like you to not include me in your daring plans and schemes, I must say." He reached over to smooth a bit of hair out of her eyes, but Aza abruptly batted his hand away.

      "Leave it," she said tersely. "It doesn't much matter anyway."

      "Is something troubling you?" he finally asked, the casual tone of his voice betraying his internal concern. "You've been a bit more… how shall I say, _thorny_ than usual of late."

      Aza said nothing for a few minutes. "I've been having the dreams again," she finally replied in a toneless voice.

     "But, you have had them since I have known you, yes?"

      " _Yes,_ but it's different now." In their early years together, Zevran would have taken her silence as the end of the conversation, but he had learned to wait. Aza had always taken her time measuring her words, and would be hurried by no one. Finally she said, still not looking at him, "I hear a voice in my dreams. Like it was during the Blight, only stronger. Just calling my name again and again."

      In the ensuing pause, Zevran found himself studying his lover's profile as though he'd never seen her before. Her hair was still the same sandy color between brown and blond, but with strands of silver woven into the braids. The blocky tattoos marking her face hadn't faded with the years, and neither had the thinner ones on her neck that he'd done for her. There were tiny wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and mouth, but her gray eyes were as sharp as ever. He took in the sight of her arms, strong and tanned and lined with scars. She looked the same to him. Twenty years and more, and she was still his beautiful Aza. Suddenly he felt as though he had to drink in the sight of her like a man dying in a desert, because it was the last time he'd ever see her.

      "It's time for me to go. To my Calling," she finally whispered, putting her hand over his.

      "No!" Zevran blurted without thought, without reason. No cajoling, no slyness or compliments, just the knowledge that he _could not let this happen._ It could not be happening, and as long as he denied it, it would not happen.

      "Zev, I've been telling you for years that this was inevitable," Aza answered wearily. "You've always known it would happen one day."

      "That does not mean that I am ready for it," he answered, barely above a whisper.

      "How do you think I feel?" she snapped. In spite of himself, Zevran managed to smile. His rose would always have her thorns.

      "I am sorry." Silence reigned for a while more, and he takes her other hand and strokes it lightly with the tips of his fingers. He studies her blunt fingertips and bitten fingernails, and then at her sturdy wrists and up her arms and neck and really dares to _look_ at her face. He sees for the first time how the Taint has ever so slightly shadowed Aza's face (how has he missed it before?). Her hair is thinning, and Zevran recalls how it has been breaking when he runs his hands through it and braids it. There are shadows beneath her eyes that have never been there before, and her lips had grown pale. There is no denying the beginning of the end, though it will destroy him.

      "My heart, I am not ready," he bursts out again, his voice breaking just a little at the last word. Aza turns her body to him, looking him in the eye at last, and wraps her arms around him. He gathers her to him as close as he can, trying to tell himself that his eyes are _not_ filling with tears – he is simply too old for that sort of nonsense.

      "I will never be ready to be away from you," she says fiercely. "But this has to be done. You know it does. Would you remember me as wasting away into a ghoul?" He has no answer for that. "When I am gone, think of all the good times we had. I wouldn't trade a single minute of it, you know that. You've shown me so many things, how to be happy and how learn and how to live a life. Remember that."

      Again he has no answer, for it is she who has shown him how to live, how to find joy and purpose and how to love through the long years. Instead he kisses her and they end up lying together on the floor in front of the fire, content to give up words for sensations. There is tenderness beyond words in their caresses this night, and they each choose to ignore the fact that both are shedding tears.

      Afterwards, they crawl into the bed and lie as close as possible, her head pillowed on his chest. After caressing her arms and back for a time, he dares to ask the question he's been dreading. "When?" he whispers to her. Aza does not answer him, and he thinks she has already fallen asleep.

      In the morning she is gone. There is a note sitting on her pillow: _I will wear your earring to the last, my Zev. Do not follow me._

      Zevran knows the way to Orzammar – he intends to catch up with her quickly, though she thinks herself so cunning. If his Aza intends to disappear into the dark, then she will not do so alone.


	3. Teasing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zevran plays a naughty trick on Aza one night after she bathes in a stream. NSFW chapter.

      The moment Aza ducked her head into her tent, Zevran slipped in behind her and pulled her into his arms, raining kisses on her cheeks and down her neck.

       “Zev, I’m still wet from bathing,” she protested, pushing gently at him. “At least give me a chance to dry off.”

      He shook his head.  “I’m afraid, my lovely, that I have no intention of doing so.” He kissed her soundly on the lips, silencing any further protest. Zevran laughed into her mouth when Aza tried hooking her ankle around his to trip him, maneuvering deftly so that she ended up landing on the thick bedroll instead. “What, using my own tricks against me? For shame.”

      “Serves you right,” Aza groused, rolling her eyes. She ran one finger along the tip of Zevran’s ear, pleased when he closed his eyes with a little shudder. “By the Stone, Zev, what’s gotten into you tonight?”

      “Forgive me, _carina_ ,” he said in a more serious tone. “If you wish me to stop, I will. You simply looked so lovely coming back from the stream with your tunic clinging to you in such a way - “

       “Cut the flattery,” she interrupted with a little smile. “I never said I wanted you to stop, you nug brain.”

      Zevran flashed her a wicked grin before he began kissing her in earnest, moving his lips slowly to the spot just under her ear that made her squirm with pleasure. He pinned her arms above her head with one hand and pushed his knee between her thighs, smirking to himself when she sighed into his mouth and squirmed against him with pleasure. Aza made a questioning sound when he drew away from her suddenly. He sat cross legged at the end of the bedroll with a wicked grin on his face, surveying his handiwork.

      Aza’s hands were tied loosely to the post holding up the roof of their tent. She looked up in confusion, then glared at him. “That was a dirty trick, you stinking duster,” she told Zevran tartly.

      “What can I say?” he answered with a modest shrug of his shoulders. “Now I must warn you, my dearest, if you pull, the entire tent will fall down on us.” That was all the warning that Aza got before Zevran pushed her tunic up and licked his way up her inner thigh. He placed a hot, open-mouthed kiss on her belly, skimming his fingertips up the curves of her hips.

      “You sodding nug - ” she panted, biting her lip to keep from wriggling.

       “Ah-ah,” Zevran murmured against her skin. “You mustn’t move now, my little goddess. Do you want to have the tent crashing down on us?”

       “Would be - your fault,” Aza grated out, trying to still her hips against the onslaught of his tongue.

       “Oh, but you wound me,” he purred, propping himself up on one elbow and tracing lazy circles around her nipple. “I simply had no choice but to tie you up, especially after the way you so deviously tried to trip me.” He lowered his mouth to the cloth-covered nub, teasing her until she shut her eyes and squirmed.

        “Zev, you dirty little - aaah!” she gasped, unable to keep from arching her back when he moved his mouth up to her neck and slipped a finger into the wetness between her thighs. He whispered something in Antivan, his hot breath tickling her ear, and Aza shivered down to her very core. He worked his finger gently inside of her and thumbed at her clit, but it wasn’t _enough_. Even when she lifted her hips, begging for more, Zevran moved his hand away from her. He only added another finger when she let out a string of curses in a mix of Dwarvish and Common.

       “My, my,” he chuckled. “You may just bring the tent down around our ears with your foul language. I suppose we’d better prevent that, yes?” He placed pressure _just so_ on her clit, speeding up his pace slightly until Aza cried out breathlessly, clenching around his fingers and squeezing her thighs together with helpless pleasure.

     While she came down from the high, Zevran cut her loose bindings and gathered her close to his chest, chafing her arms gently even though there were no markings. He kissed the inside of her wrists, all comfort and gentleness, and Aza sighed contentedly.

     “Well, I am impressed that you managed not to drag the tent down,” Zevran smirked, tracing aimless patterns across her neck and cheek. “I imagine it was difficult to withstand the temptation.”

      “You might have won the first round, you cheeky bastard” Aza answered, with a lazy, sated grin. “But you just turned me into a sopping wet mess, Zev.” She leaned forward and whispered in his ear, “it’s time for me to return the favor.”


	4. Reunion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the events of Awakenings, the newly arisen master of the Antivan Crows receives a surprise visitor.

_This was almost too easy_ , Zevran thought lazily, sifting through papers and contracts on the former guildmaster’s desk. He sipped at a glass of chilled wine and looked idly out the window, watching the play of shadows from the branches of the orange tree in the garden. Orchestrating his most masterful assassination to date and the subsequent takeover of the Crows should have been quite the proud moment for him. But after his adventures in Ferelden, the victory didn’t have quite the savor that it should have.

       Zevran sighed and drained his glass when the door opened, admitting his current second-in-command. “Yes, what is it, Paolo?”

       The man bowed briefly. “Master Arainai, there is a… young lady demanding to see you. She has already threatened to kill the gate guards if we don’t let her in.”

      “Really? My charms have already have the ladies of Rialto threatening to break in?” Zevran twirled his empty glass by its stem and propped his feet up on the desk. “And here I’ve only been back in Antiva for a few months.”

       Paolo shifted his weight nervously, and Zevran glanced over the rim of his glass with interest. Usually the man had nerves of steel. “She is not Antivan, Master, not even human. A dwarven woman, in fact. Her accent is Fereldan and she has some odd tattoos on her face. “

       Zevran felt the glass falling out of his hand, and caught it just before it hit the desk. _It couldn’t be._

        Luckily, Paolo didn’t seem to notice Zevran’s momentary lapse of composure. “Master Arainai?” he was saying. “What would you like us to do with her?”

        “Let her in immediately. Clear the halls and bring her here. And Paolo,” Zevran added softly, picking a dagger up off the desk and running his finger along the blade, “discretion is everything.”

       It was all that Zevran could do to keep from jumping up and pacing the room once Paolo was gone. _Maintain composure,_ he thought sternly to himself. _It could be any dwarf. It does no good to -  
_

        The door to his office opened abruptly and a short figure barged in, waving Paolo back in irritation and slamming the door behind her. “This is how I get treated, walking here all the way from Amaranthine?” a very familiar voice grumbled. Aza pulled her traveling cloak off and let it fall to the floor, planting her hands on her hips. “Your guards were sodding annoying, and Antivan Crows or not, I was about to - “

      Zevran was across the room before she could finish, pulling her into his arms and lifting her off the floor. Her words were muffled against his chest as he held her tighter, burying his face in her hair and trying to remember how to breath. He sank to his knees and let himself fall backwards onto the cool marble floor with Aza on top of him, listening to her startled laughter and finally, _finally_ , feeling her lips on his.

       There were months poured into that kiss, months of worry and yearning and doubt on both sides. They parted only reluctantly to catch their breath, and Zevran drank in Aza’s smile as she looked down at him.

       “You look thin, my heart,” he murmured, tracing her cheek with one finger. “I’ll have to feed you some proper Antivan food.”

        Aza sat up to straddle his hips with a roll of her eyes and then helped him to sit up. “ _I’m_ supposed to be the emotionally constipated one, Zev,” she said drily. “You haven’t seen me for over six months and all you can think to say is that I look thin?”

       Zevran settled his arms around her neck. “Forgive me. Shall I say, then, that I have not been able to sleep for worrying about you? That I have had nightmares of darkspawn carrying you off, and that rumors of your disappearance reached my ears weeks ago and I feared the worst?”

       “All right, all right, don’t lay the guilt on me,” she retorted. “I got things taken care of in Amaranthine, and then I just… I don’t know. Felt like I needed to get away from it all. Maybe forever. Too many people relying on me. And I missed you,” she added in a low voice, ducking her head to rest it against his shoulder.

      “Well, if there is anything the Crows are good at, it is helping someone to disappear,” Zevran grinned. He got to his feet and pulled Aza up, keeping hold of both her hands and kissing each of them in turn. “For now, I think that it is time for us to retire to the bedchamber and continue our long-overdue reunion there, wouldn’t you say?”

      Aza unbuckled her belt and let it drop to the floor, raising her eyebrow in a challenge. She took a few steps towards the door while undoing the clasps of her jerkin. “You coming?” she asked coyly.

      Zevran hurried to follow her, more than eager to make up for lost time.


End file.
